Synthetic biomaterials used in abdominal wall surgery

Parietal abdominal defects are among the most frequent surgical problems, being a major cause of work capacity loss, sometimes being lethal. We point out the aspects of the topic from the perspective of prostheses. The most common intervention within general surgery is the treatment for inguinal hernia with approximately 700,000 cases handled annually in the United States alone. Although many techniques have been described to repair these parietal defects, the results are still disappointing. Parietal defects surgery was revolutionized by the appearance of prostheses, increasingly more effective, which has led to a dramatic drop in the rate of recidivism. Therefore, there were used materials of the most diverse in the treatment of herni. Surgeons have used and subsequently rejected many types of implants until the settlement of the materials variety most widely used today. Nowadays, general surgery has access to wide and sophisticated synthetic biomaterials for use in the treatment of hernia.
This article examines the types of prostheses identified in the literature and used by us in medical practice, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of each type of material used.